While Santa Barbara residents are trying to stay safe during the Thomas fire, local businesses like hotels, retailers and restaurants are also trying to cope.
With its stunning seaside and lush forest views, Santa Barbara is a prime tourist spot for many Angelenos. But air filled with smoke and ash is keeping tourists away.
To find out how the area's pre-holiday tourist traffic been affected by the fires, Take Two's Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Santa Barbara local, Lindsey LeBlanc. She's a supervisor at Backyard Bowls, a smoothie and fruit bowl shop in downtown Santa Barbara.
Interview highlights
How are things where you are?
LEBLANC: I had started to reconsider leaving [Saturday]. I made the decision to close the store for the day. I just didn't think it was safe because it ended up getting really smoky that day. They put out the fires that evening. They had said that the winds were in their favor...so that was good.
What's your sense of other businesses in the area?
LEBLANC: The streets are like ghost towns, so you can definitely tell that there are a lot people who aren't in town anymore. Over the weekend and late last week, there were a lot of people packing up their cars. You can tell there aren't a lot of tourists in town.
McCarty Carino also spoke to Ken Oplinger, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, Santa Barbara region. He wants tourists to know that despite the fires, Santa Barbara is thriving and tourists should keep any plans to visit.
For a lot of Angelenos, Santa Barbara is a getaway spot. What is the traffic normally like this time of year and how has the fire affected that?
OPLINGER: It's the off season, but for the couple of weeks before Christmas, we generally see an uptick. Hotels and restaurants are full. The last two weeks have been disappointing. For the retail industry, this is the time of year they make or break it. So it's disconcerting.
Some hotels have been evacuated, and others are asking guests to stay indoors. How do you describe the situation with Santa Barbara hotels right now?
OPLINGER: Most of the hotels in town have remained open throughout this incident. Many are hosting folks that are evacuated. But we still have guests in the area. I think hotels know they can get through a time like this which is finite and the fires will be put out, but so many people in the Los Angeles metro area, Orange County, San Diego who are thinking about January/February plans are making cancellations. The message to those folks are, 'We're open for business here, the fires are essentially put out.' So we encourage them to rethink that and come back.
How have retailers been dealing with this during the holiday season?
OPLINGER: What they're hoping is that we have one more shopping weekend, that they can recover somewhat. Many of them have brought in a tremendous amount of inventory to meet the needs of the holiday shoppers. You've seen the downturn across the board that they're going to be strongly looking at how to recover.
What's the game plan for Santa Barbara businesses to bounce back?
OPLINGER: We're going to have to put some effort in. There's going to be in the next week to ten days, we'll begin a pretty substantial marketing campaign in L.A. We're going to really work to encourage folks to come back to Santa Barbara and let them know that we're open for business and things are as wonderful as they always are here.
Interviews have been edited for clarity